The present invention relates to a motorized pet food feeder and, more particularly, to a motorized pet food feeder that permits a controlled amount of feed to be dispensed at a predetermined time.
Controlling the diet of pets, and particularly dogs, is important to ensure their health and happiness. In order to have a healthy, hardy dog, it is necessary to monitor its diet carefully, both for quality and quantity. Diets and amounts are based on the individual dog and the life it leads. However, when a diet is established that the dog likes and thrives on, it is very important to stick to it day after day without variation. This goes also to the time of feeding. If one meal is given, feeding in the morning is preferred, as feeding at night can result in the dog going to bed on too full a stomach. If two feedings are given, the day""s ration is simply divided between the two meals.
Thus, the proper feeding of a dog entails more than just leaving out a bowl of food for the dog to eat whenever it is hungry. However, because of the busy and irregular schedules of many of today""s dog owners, it is difficult to maintain a regular and uniform feeding schedule. In response to this need, a number of automatic pet food feeders have been proposed. One type of these is exemplified by the devices disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,735,171 and 4,665,862. The feeders in both of these patents disclose a hopper for storing dried food, which is dispensed from the hopper into a food bowl by means of a rotatable auger. While both of these devices have the benefit of being adapted to timed operation, their design is such that they are likely to crush the feed, which makes it unappealing to the dog, or to jam, so that the device is no longer operable. The occurrence of either the crushing of the food or the jamming of the feeder defeats the whole purpose of having such an automatic pet food feeder, as the end result is that the owner cannot be reliably assured of his dog being fed.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a motorized pet food feeder that reliably and repeatably operates with a reduced likelihood of the crushing of the food or of the jamming of the feeder by the food.
It is an additional object to provide such a pet food feeder which is adapted to regularly and repeatably provide a controlled amount of feed at predictable times.
It is a still further object to provide such a pet food feeder that is simple to operate and safe for both the pet and the owner.
These objects, as well as others which will become apparent upon reference to the following detailed description and accompanying drawings, are accomplished by a motorized pet food feeder having a food storage bin with a top and a bottom, the bottom having an opening through which food pellets held in the bin are fed. The bin rests upon a base comprising a bowl with a back, front, and a bottom with a housing extending from the back of the bowl. The housing is adapted to removably receive the bottom of the food storage bin. A motor is mounted to the housing that has a rotatable shaft, and an auger is mounted to the rotatable shaft so that its free end extends substantially to above the back of the bowl. A tube is supported by the housing and encloses the auger, the tube having an open end, coinciding with the free end of the auger and a portion of the tube being cut away to expose from above less than the full diameter of the auger. The cut-away portion of the tube is aligned with the opening in the bottom of the food storage bin so that gravity feeds pet food from the food storage bin through the cut-away opening in the tube to the auger which, when rotating, moves the food out the open end of the tube into the bowl. In a preferred embodiment, the tube is cut away to expose from above approximately one-half the diameter of the auger and to expose from the side substantially the entire diameter of the auger. The pet food feeder is adapted to be used with various timing and sensing devices that control the actuation of the motor and the duration of activation, thereby controlling the amount of food transported by the auger to the bowl.